Springsteen helps ‘Promised Land’

Rock star gives Damon film a karaoke song to sing (off-key)

Matt Damon and John Krasinski co-wrote, co-produced and star in Focus Features’ “Promised Land,” so naturally the small-town drama that presents them as opponents boasts a karaoke scene.

Why are there so many karaoke scenes in movies?

Damon and Krasinski couldn’t answer that question at the Dec. 4 preem at Lincoln Square Cinema, but did talk about why they put one in their pic.

“I definitely wrote in that I was not going to sing karaoke,” says Damon, “but we needed a scene where John’s character appears and wins the town over. So we thought, ‘What better way than singing a great Bruce Springsteen song?’ ”

Krasinski recalls, “The greatest appeal was in writing the stage directions: ‘This character is terrible at karaoke.’ The thrilling part for me was I didn’t have to be good after that. And we actually reached out to Bruce Springsteen for ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ which was phenomenal.”